


Floodplain

by kathryne



Category: Batwoman (Comic), DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne/pseuds/kathryne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after, Kate thinks some hard thoughts about the reality of her relationship with Maggie.  Missing scene from Batwoman #4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floodplain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twtd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twtd/gifts).



Kate curled up in the messy bed after Maggie left, letting the warmth that lingered in the sheets lull her back into a doze. For once her muscles were sore from something other than fighting, and she luxuriated in the sensation, holding it to her as she dropped back to sleep.

Maybe it was that sense of physical exertion that followed her into her dreams, but she slipped sideways into a nightmare. She was drowning in the water under the boathouse again, water that tasted of gasoline and decay, and it was Alice dragging her down, a weight around her ankles like a concrete block. Alice, her face half-rotted, skeletal, bits eaten away by hungry fish, but her eyes still terrifyingly present, fixed on Kate like that moment of horrible lucidity and recognition on the wing of the plane. They sank downward together through the sewage-choked water of Gotham Harbour, and Kate couldn't bring herself to pull away from Alice's touch.

A hand flashed past her face. _Maggie_ , she thought, and grabbed for it, and Alice let go with a shriek that echoed through the water. Kate groped towards the surface, but her mask and wig obscured her vision; clawing blindly, she ripped them off and looked up.

It wasn't Maggie.

It was Renee.

Renee was in the uniform she'd worn all those years ago when she'd walked a beat, but her face was a misty oval behind the Question's blank mask. A detective's shield hung incongruously around her neck, waving in the current. The chain elongated as Kate watched, undulating toward her like a strand of seaweed, and wrapped itself around her throat.

Kate choked, scrabbling to loosen it, and let go of Renee's hand. The current took her in a whirl of foul bubbles. As she drifted down again and the hot rush of seawater burned through her lungs, Renee faded into the waves, her masked mouth curved in a grimace of pain.

Kate woke with a shuddering gasp and hurtled out of bed. Standing bent over on rubbery legs, she breathed harshly, checking to be sure her lungs till worked.

She staggered unsteadily to the bathroom, clinging to the sink for long enough to splash some water on her face. She was drenched in sweat, but - she darted a quick glance at her shower and shuddered; she couldn't bear the thought of stepping under its spray until she was sure it wouldn't come alive around her.

"Dammit, Kate," she said aloud, sinking down to sit on the lid of the toilet. "What was that all about?" No surprise that she'd dream of drowning, nor of Alice - of Beth - not with the lost children on her mind. Not with the apartment still echoing with Bette's angry words as Kate drove her away - for her own good, Kate reminded herself. Bette wasn't disciplined enough to face the kind of threat Kate was coming to realize the DEO posed. That didn't make it any easier to walk through the empty rooms.

But Maggie - Kate scrubbed her hands over her face and through her hair. She would not feel guilty about that, she told herself sternly. Renee was long gone, off on her own vendettas, and long out of Kate's life before that, Religion of Crime or not. She found herself tracing the scar above her heart, remembering Maggie's lips following the raised line, and jerked her hand away angrily.

She didn't need protecting. She _didn't_. But the strength that Maggie and Renee both shared... maybe that was what attracted Kate to them. Neither of them needed protecting from _her_. They could both take care of themselves no matter what Kate's life as Batwoman brought with her. And Maggie was already involved, both in the DEO investigation and in the abduction case.

More, Maggie knew her duty. She'd risen from Kate's bed with the missing children on her mind and a look on her face that Kate had recognized immediately as one of her own. Determination, anger, sorrow... detectives wore plain clothes, the better to sneak through Gotham's underworld, but the shield Maggie bore was as much of a uniform as the red and black of Kate's suit. It was comforting, to know that the job came first for her too.

Wrapping a bathrobe around herself for reassurance more than warmth, Kate wandered out into the kitchen. Poking a few buttons on her coffeemaker, she leaned against the counter and started out the window at the roof of the police station. That dedication to duty was where the danger in dating Maggie lay, too. Batwoman and the GCPD weren't on opposite sides, but Kate had heard enough, from Renee among others, about the on-again off-again animosity between Batman and the police, and she didn't really want to have to deal with that. It would be easier if she could just convince Maggie that Batwoman wasn't a threat.

She sipped her latte and pondered. Even without the DEO harassing Maggie, it wouldn't have been easy to sell cooperation with a vigilante. Maybe she could use that, though, align them both against the DEO. As long as she didn't get captured by them again – and neither did Maggie – that might work. She might be able to turn Maggie's fierce pride in the department she was building into a point of connection. It would have helped if Maggie had been a Gotham native, with worship of the Bat built into her DNA, but she'd come to Gotham all the same, and converts were sometimes more fanatical than those brought up in a belief. With luck, she could at least get Maggie to a point where she wouldn't turn Batwoman in without thinking about it first.

Until then, though... Kate looked down at her pale legs, where the bruises from her adventure at the boathouse were coming up rapidly. They hadn't bloomed into full colour last night, thankfully, or else Maggie definitely would have noticed. She'd have to come up with some way to explain those away in future, some potentially dangerous hobby. Not martial arts – that was too obvious, and though there was no reason for Maggie to associate anything about her with Batwoman, that was no reason to be sloppy. Maggie was too good a detective for that.

Kate laughed bitterly, putting her coffee down. "So much for the afterglow," she said aloud, shattering the silence in the apartment. Wasn't the morning after supposed to be for luxuriating in the sore muscles and the endorphin rush, the possibilities of a new relationship? And instead here she was, planning the best ways to lie to her girlfriend. The thought made her skin crawl, and she headed determinedly back to the bathroom.

The job came first. She had to believe that. And those lost kids weren't going to wait for her to have a crisis of faith.

"You are a bitch, Kate Kane," she said to herself, turning the shower on hot and stepping unflinchingly under the spray. "Better get used to it."

She closed her eyes under the water and let it wash the sweat of her nightmares away.


End file.
